An Interesting Future for Outerra

[cameni 9]

(Modern) OpenGL actually doesn't need to do much to get on par with Mantle. Here's a tweet from our discussion about Mantle with OpenGL head at AMD:

https://twitter.com/grahamsellers/status/383242587609395201

 

I totally agree with that, and OT profiling only confirms it. Mantle would still be a good thing if it was widely available and supported, as it allows to leverage some extra performance by people who know how to work at that level, but those numbers compare mainly to DirectX and apps that currently lose performance in the driver overhead. OT would barely gain anything, though it could allow us to do some things more efficiently, mainly for better fluidity and better resource management. Here's where we count on OpenGL bringing some extra control in the future, and view Mantle more like a catalyst that can get some things moving.

 

DirectX has always had a much higher API overhead, so it's only good that Mantle can kick them into doing something about it. Though I guess it will be locked to Windows 9 because of all new driver model that for mysterious reason cannot apply to older Windows versions :rolleyes:

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

(Modern) OpenGL actually doesn't need to do much to get on par with Mantle. Here's a tweet from our discussion about Mantle with OpenGL head at AMD:

https://twitter.com/grahamsellers/status/383242587609395201

 

I totally agree with that, and OT profiling only confirms it. Mantle would still be a good thing if it was widely available and supported, as it allows to leverage some extra performance by people who know how to work at that level, but those numbers compare mainly to DirectX and apps that currently lose performance in the driver overhead. OT would barely gain anything, though it could allow us to do some things more efficiently, mainly for better fluidity and better resource management. Here's where we count on OpenGL bringing some extra control in the future, and view Mantle more like a catalyst that can get some things moving.

 

DirectX has always had a much higher API overhead, so it's only good that Mantle can kick them into doing something about it. Though I guess it will be locked to Windows 9 because of all new driver model that for mysterious reason cannot apply to older Windows versions :rolleyes:

 

I think that John Carmack said (in response to the Mantle announcement) that OpenGL with vendor-specific extensions can get Mantle-like performance, so I did know that was possible with the OpenGL we have now. I'm thinking that maybe Khronos Group are aiming to make OpenGL get that performance boost without extensions, which would make it much easier for all developers to take better advantage of hardware.

 

I agree with your views that Mantle and DirectX are not the future. Mantle was created for GCN GPUs, and NVIDIA are definitely not going to make big changes to their architecture to support it. It deserves credit though for pushing the competition. DirectX 12 will surely be locked into a new operating system, and if Windows 9 is as horrible as Windows 8, then OpenGL really deserves to become the API of choice for all developers.

[DocBird 79]

Very interesting indeed.

 

Just imagine Outerra (with detaild vector data) combined with a good wx-engine and a solid simulation engine for the flight dynamics. Include some Ai-traffic and multiplayer function as well as a large library for buildings of all kinds and ...

[HiFlyer 9,359]

Some things that have upped my enjoyment of Outerra:

 

1) The grass textures that come with Outerra have always seemed too "fright wig" green to me.

 

Temporary solution: Kelvinrs textures for NZ do a global change to some textures and though muted are also a lot more realistic in my opinion. Try them out!!! http://forum.outerra.com/index.php?topic=2173.0

 

2) Sky can seem very very hazy. While this is an excellent depiction of atmospheric scattering, for some, it can be a bit too much.

 

Possible solution: Look in the ENV setting under ATMOSPHERE And change scattering to a level that suits you. I find .50 to .55 to be nice.

 

3) Very slight terrain pop:

 

Solution: Up your quality settings

 

 

 

Just imagine Outerra (with detaild vector data) combined with a good wx-engine and a solid simulation engine for the flight dynamics. Include some Ai-traffic and multiplayer function as well as a large library for buildings of all kinds and ...

 

Playing around this morning, I was imagining the what the tubeliner guys would think with some nice clouds and passable weather, aided my the addition of rivers below. (need some cockpit lighting too!)

 

Add in some even rudimentary navaids and I think people would flock to Outerra and start adding things like crazy, even if it didn't have all the latest alphabet soup.

 

Its just so nice up there!!  :lol:

 

[Noel 4,502]

 

 

The advantage is clear: this design is able to fully exploit the programmable graphics hardware, which scales much better than CPUs can. It also leaves the CPU resources for the simulation.

 

Wow, amazing stuff.  Seems like a Golden Egg just waiting for the funds and enthusiasm to blow everything else out of the picture.   And I guess it's not really new is it?  Bizarre that it hasn't been bought up by the likes of Apple, MS, or even LM themselves to start over from scratch.

 

Devon, does the architecture as you describe it lend itself in any way better to multithreading for the computational tasks on the CPU as well, or not really compared to ESP for example?

[HiFlyer 9,359]

Wow, amazing stuff.  Seems like a Golden Egg just waiting for the funds and enthusiasm to blow everything else out of the picture.   And I guess it's not really new is it?  Bizarre that it hasn't been bought up by the likes of Apple, MS, or even LM themselves to start over from scratch.

 

Devon, does the architecture as you describe it lend itself in any way better to multithreading for the computational tasks on the CPU as well, or not really compared to ESP for example?

 

That's a better question for the developers!

 

My understanding though is that Outerra supports Multithreading, but whether it does it more efficiently that ESP.... you would have to measure that somehow especially once P3Dv2 went to DX11. I do know that since it does so much of its work on the GPU, it frees up the available CPU cores to do a lot more of the good stuff! 

 

EDIT!:

 

By the way. Eurofighter 2000 (WIP especially the cockpit) added to Outerra. Download here.  http://forum.outerra.com/index.php?topic=2501.0;topicseen

 

[wolke85 150]

 

 

Its just so nice up there!! :lol:

 

Indeed!

[Humpty 751]

Wow

[kelvinr 58]

This engine is incomparable to any flight sim out there because a) it is a procedural world with a completely different coding structure and methodology, b) it still has a lot of work to show the working parts of a flight simulator and is currently in a maturing state.

 

This engine is revolutionary in terms of where the flight simulator genre is at and where it is going.

 

There's just the hope that the funding scheme will take off and a simulator will be born. A flight simulator using Outerra has one thing going for it even in it's current state, the developers are pure and open to the communication process with both the community and (any) developers alike which as we have seen creates a much better ambiance within the community and offers some insight into how this engine can be what we all want it to be.

 

One thing I see so far that gets me excited is the actual scaling of the world and objects planted in it, it is much better than anything I have ever seen.

[eke_flx 8]

I can`t see in demo version lakes or rivers, no inland waterways?

[HiFlyer 9,359]

UPDATE:

Changes:

Version 0.8.1.4480

• added SM11 bus model with doors animation
• vehicle doors can be open from outside using the open key, AOpen script action param changed to contain the door id (TODO define&detect doors)
• HUD working in sandbox
• fixed axis_integrator in vehicle scripts with zero bound
• fixed tps camera glitch when switching between cameras, last tps camera position preserved
• camera height in simple fps mode set to 1.8m, in UFO mode 1m
• camera toggle supports shift modifier for backwards enumeration
• removed default binding to the camera control axes
• enlarged video frame buffers, fixed sound skipping
• fixed space flying boats
• fixed saving of joystick configuration files
• fixed spherical/cylindrical projection in RFP depth mode

[HiFlyer 9,359]

I can`t see in demo version lakes or rivers, no inland waterways?

 

Not yet. Since Outerra doesn't just "paint" features like that onto the land, its a bit more of a process. For one, the rivers will likely be movable, the water will divide and flow realistically through channels and follow certain rules as well as have depths determined by the available data etc.

 

They covered some of it in their retrospective inked by the OP:

 

 

OSM roads, buildings

 

Many people aren't content with the pristine unspoiled world, and are asking about getting all the civilization stuff in. Since OT can overlay vector data over the procedurally generated terrain, and the existing road engine generates the roads from vector data, import of an existing vector database of roads and other data will be possible as well.

 

OpenStreetMap is one of the possible sources for the road data and much more - rivers, fields, artificial forests and parks, building footprints etc. The roads and rivers will be the first to import, after the engine exposes interfaces for import plugins, allowing programmatical creation of OT roads and other entities. Import process will produce binary files usable directly by the terrain generator. The format is probably not going to be published - it's likely to change as the engine evolves, and for example right now the data even cannot be generated without knowing some of the data from the internal engine structures representing the terrain.

 

Some of the internal features being developed to handle the needs in this area:

• extended road system capabilities - separate properties for the left/right side, configurable road profiles, markings
• seamless road joins, splits (the existing data format puts some limitations on it)
• "river bed" road profiles and river water surface shaders
• polygonal vector mode for larger overlays - large rivers with well defined bank shapes, lakes, but also for fields, pastures, artificial trees or tree removal, terrain leveling etc

Just a side note. I have been wondering about frame rates and just found that there is an internal FPS counter activated by pressing Ctrl & F12

 

Results are that I average between 239 and 250 FPS.

 

I turned down atmospheric scattering to get less of Outerras haze effect and found my frame rates were then about 280 FPS.

 

Seems like they might have a lot of frames to trade away as they add more stuff (like rivers and lakes and clouds!!) to the program. :blink:

[HiFlyer 9,359]

Testing frames over the grand Canyon  :smile:

 

[bundername 0]

Looks like fsx's airplanes can be converted to outerra not hardly.There was a dude on the forum showing the process of the aerosoft a320 extended then he decided to stop due copyright issues.

[HiFlyer 9,359]

Looks like fsx's airplanes can be converted to outerra not hardly.There was a dude on the forum showing the process of the aerosoft a320 extended then he decided to stop due copyright issues.

 

He's doing another FSX plane (Basler Turbo BT-67) instead with the permission of the creator. There is already a link for a static model, while the working one is being completed.